Earlier this year, my second Marc Dane action thiller Exile was
released in hardcover by Bonnier Zaffre, and today the book returns in a
new paperback edition! You'll be able to find it from this week in all
good bookstores, and places like WH Smith, Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and
Sainsburys...
Abandoned by MI6, Marc Dane finds himself in a dead-end job monitoring international sales of counterfeit nuclear weapons.
But
suddenly Marc happens upon the real thing – a Russian general flees
Moscow with a suitcase nuke, off-loading it to a Serbian gang known for
dealing fakes. However, Marc’s own reputation is a rock-bottom: can he
convince his cynical bosses to take the threat seriously?
And
there’s little time for delay – the Serbs have already found a customer.
Abur Ramaas is a ruthless Somali pirate nursing a desire to avenge the
suffering of his homeland, and with this weapon he realises he’ll never
have a better chance.
Forced to go rogue, Marc Dane’s only hope
is to reach out to his old ally Lucy Keyes and the Rubicon group.
Pursuing Ramaas across the globe, Marc and Lucy face a desperate race to
prevent Armageddon.
But with Abur Ramaas, nothing is ever as it seems...
Racing from secret CIA black site prisons to the skyscrapers of Dubai, from storm-beaten oil rigs off the African coast to the ancient caverns beneath the city of Naples, Marc Dane returns in the explosive new thriller from the internationally bestselling author of NOMAD...
This new edition of Exile also includes my author's letter and an excerpt from Ghost, the next book in the series (due for release next Summer).
If you didn't read Exile in hardback, now's your chance! The book is also available in digital and audio versions (click the highlighted links for more details), and you can visit the official website of the Marc Dane series at WhoIsMarcDane.com.
I sometimes post details about whatever music I'm listening to while I work up on my Twitter feed, using the #writersoundtrack hashtag.
Last year, on December 3rd, I put up a picture of this album cover as both a cryptic secret clue and a way-point marker for my future self.
In the year that passed, I think that maybe one or two people wondered if it was an oblique reference to something - well yeah, it was, because that was the day I got a ticket to the Disco.
My fellow writer and all-around lovely person Kirsten Beyer reached out along with my editor Margaret Clark and offered me the chance to write the third original novel to tie-in with the new Star Trek: Discovery series. As you might imagine, it wasn't a hard call to say yes; and so next summer Fear Itself will be hitting the bookshelves.
Lieutenant Saru is a Kelpien, a member of a prey species born on a world overrun by monstrous predators…and a being who very intimately understands the nature of fear. Challenged on all sides, he is determined to surpass his origins and succeed as a Starfleet officer aboard the U.S.S. Shenzhou.
But when Saru breaks protocol in order to prove himself to his crewmates, what begins as a vital rescue mission to save a vessel in distress soon escalates out of control. Forced into a command role he may not be ready for, Saru is caught between his duty and the conflicting agendas of two antagonistic alien races.
To survive, he will need to seek a path of peace against all odds, and risk compromising the very ideals he has sworn to uphold….
Fear Itself follows on from Desperate Hours and Drastic Measures by m'colleagues David Mack and Dayton Ward and continues the theme of the Discovery novels by unfolding some more of the backstory of the show's main characters - in my case, I've written a story that centres around the Kelpien science officer Saru. The story is set after the events of Dayton's book but before Dave's (and also the events of the show itself), while Saru is a lieutenant serving with Michael Burnham under Captain Phillippa Georgiou aboard the U.S.S. Shenzhou.
Over the past year, it's been fun (and truth be told, a little unusual) to be involved in the Discovery production, talking with the other writers and seeing the show evolve. One of the coolest things was getting to read all the scripts and receiving daily digests of set photos from the series, watching the episodes come together piece by piece.
I got to spend a day at the Discovery writers office in Los Angeles a few months ago, seeing early cuts of the show before it aired and getting feedback from the team on the themes and concepts for my novel. I've never had this level of access or collaboration while working on a tie-in project before, and I hope it will show in the book.
I've been keeping this under wraps for a year, but now I can finally talk about it, I want to say that it's great to able to help develop some backstory for one of Discovery's key characters and I'm excited to return to the Star Trek universe once again!
Star Trek: Discovery - Fear Itself will be released on June 5th 2018, and it'll be published in eBook and trade paperback formats. Check out StarTrek.com's news post on the book announcement Here.
Marc Dane is back (in paperback)...
Exile, the second book in my series of original action thrillers, will be on sale in a new paperback edition from the end of December, from Bonnier Zaffre books. To pre-order a copy, click here!
After the success of last month's double-header event featuring myself and my sterling colleague Ben Aaronovitch (author of the Rivers of London urban fantasy series), we've been called on to do it again next month, this time in London - and tickets are now available!
Come along and listen to us talk about the craft of writing novels and genre fiction; we'll take questions and hopefully provide an insight into the life of a jobbing author...
The event is free, part of the #Late@TheLibrary programme, running from 6.30pm to 8.00pm on Tuesday 12th December at the Finsbury Library, 245 St John Street, London, EC1V 4NB - and you can sign up right Here.
As ever, copies of Ben's novels and my Marc Dane thrillers will be available for purchase on the day, and we'll both be happy to sign them and anything brought along by attendees.
It's the IVth Black Library Weekender this, uh, weekend, and I'll be along as usual talking about my fiction from the worlds of Warhammer 40,000 and the Horus Heresy, joined by a bunch of my fellow authors and artists...
For more details, check out the event website here. My schedule shakes out like this:
Saturday:
11.30am - 12.30am: Signing in the Administratum Room.
1.30pm - 2.30pm: I join Gav Thorpe and George Mann in the Strategium Room to talk about Black Library audio dramas.
4.00pm - 5.00pm: I'm in the Briefing Chamber with Gav and John French talking about scriptwriting for audio.
Sunday:
10.00am - 11.00am: Signing in the Administratum Room.
11.15am - 12.15am: I'll be in the Audience Chamber, discussing "The Emperor's Noble Sons" with Chris Wraight, David Annandale and David Guymer.
There's also a metric f'ton of new stuff and early releases hitting at the event - and you can see the full list here - but among them is an all-new Warhammer 40,000 audio drama I've written called Corsair: The Face of the Void.
This is the first in what may be a series of stories following the misadventures of Captain Athene Santiago and the crew of the Rogue Trader starship Corsair.
We've got a great cast of characters and I've had a great time writing this tale - you can find out more about the audio here.
